I’m late announcing this – I’ve been at a conference – but the Imaginarium: the Best Canadian Speculative Writing series is one I always watch with great interest every year. Once, in 2012, I got in with my story “Centipede Girl”. Since then I’ve had honourable mentions – two or three a year – but no bites.
Except now I am pleased to announce that Imaginarium 4 will feature not one, not two, but THREE of my poems from 2014. (“Self-Portrait as Bilbo Baggins“, “The Parable of the Supervillain”, and “The Mermaid at Sea World”.)
About that conference. I’m still at it. I presented an academic paper this morning – the second this year to have my real name attached as first author – and my supervisors say that once I remembered to slow down my speech to the rate of a normal Earthling, it went perfectly. I am now on a break between the parts of the conference that interest me, sitting at a small green desk in a high, garrety hotel room, typing on my computer, watching the rain and lightning outside and playing opera. It’s this odd mix of cosiness and spookiness which feels peculiarly writerly to me.
Getting my writing life back together, after the awful summer last year, is still a work in progress, which is why I’ve been quiet; but it’s coming along. On a day like today, I can’t help but feel encouraged.